Hand Book of the American Republics Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1891 Excerpt: ...a cost of about 7 to 8 cents per bunch, and they are sold at the plantations to the American fruit companies for from 50 to 60 cents, American gold. They in turn sell them in this country for from $1 to $3 per bunch. It is calculated that a vessel with a dead-weight capacity of 1,000 tons could carry a cargo of 20,000 bunches. It is aire idy a known fact that the loss on the voyage rarely exceeds 15 per cent; therefore if the balance were to be sold at the low price of $1 per bunch, the profit made on the trip on the cargo of bananas only, without calculating at all the profits that could be had carrying passengers and mails, would amount to no less than $7,000 after the payment of all the expenses. The estimated loss of 15 per cent, which the vessel suffers, could be greatly diminished if there were better facilities of transportation in those countries, where the bananas are taken from the plantations to be put on board of trains, small steamers, or canoes, on springless carts, or on the heads of the laborers. The bananas intended for exportation are cut green, stowed in the vessel carefully, and in such a way as to permit the air to circulate freely, and avoid the rays of the sun, which would ripen the fruit before it reaches its destination. Any slight bruise made on the skin of a green banana, a though apparently unnoticeable at first, develops in the rip fruit into a black spot, which tends to lessen the value of the fruit: n the market As it is generally the case that the fruit produced for exportation in tropic countries finds ready purchasers at the plantations, who pay for it at the moment of its delivery, and ship it to the markets of the United States in their own vessels, there is no established rate of freight on bananas. The owners of the vess..